The technical field relates to a control apparatus and method for a master-slave robot to generate or teach an operation of, for example, a robot arm master-slave robot, a master-slave robot having a control apparatus for a master-slave robot, and a control program for a master-slave robot. The present invention relates to a force measurement device in a manipulation by a person, a control apparatus and method for a master-slave robot that assists a manipulation by a person, a master-slave robot, and a control program.
In recent years, there is a master-slave robot in which a master robot is remotely manipulated by a person to cause a slave robot to perform a task.
For example, endoscopic surgery is performed such that an operator fits a tube called a trocar in a hole formed in the abdomen of a human body, inserts a tip end of a surgical instrument such as a dedicated endoscope or a forceps fixed to a slave from the trocar into the body, and manipulates a master while watching a video image of the endoscope displayed on a monitor screen to move the forceps fixed to the slave by remote control from the master. Even though a special doctor is not at the site, a surgical operation can be performed through the remote operation.
At a manufacturing premise, there is proposed a master-slave robot that remotely teaches a slave in an overseas factory from a domestic factory. In particular, regardless of location, a skilled task such as a flexible substrate insertion task can be taught such that a skilled person in the domestic factory remotely teaches a slave machine in an overseas factory.
In any master-slave system, in addition to a function of manipulating a master to smoothly manipulate a slave, a function of feeding back a force acting on the slave to the master is required.
However, in feeding back a force acting on the slave to the master, when the master and the slave have different inertia forces (for example, a slave is heavy and a master is light) and the force acting on the slave is fed back to the master, the inertia force in addition to the force is applied to the master. For this reason, large force is applied to the master, which causes large movement of the master. When the master largely moves, the slave also largely moves, and, by a work such as a flexible substrate gripped with the slave, a forceps gripped with an operator or the slave may hurt a living body.
As a method of feeding back a force acting on the slave to the master, force sensors are disposed on an arm portion of a surgical robot and a surgical instrument, and a force acting on a tip end of a forceps or a force acting on a robot arm is detected to feed back the force to the operator (see Patent Literature 1 (Japanese Translation of PCT Publication No. 2011-517419)).
As a proposal of feeding back a force acting on a slave to a master, there is a proposal that a force acting on the tip end of the slave is detected, and, when an impulse calculated from the detected force is a predetermined threshold value or more, the magnitude of a force fed back to the master is corrected to be decreased (see Patent Literature 2 (Japanese Unexamined Patent Publication No. 8-164807)).
In addition, there is a proposal that, based on information of a force acting on the slave or a velocity thereof, the force acting on the slave is enlarged to fed back to the master (see Patent Literature 3 (WO 2012/029227)).